Shepard Fairey Biography

Shepard Fairey is American street artist and graphic designer best known for his Barack Obama "Hope" poster. One of the most famous and influential street artists of the contemporary era, his works are displayed at several prestigious museums all over the world including the Smithsonian, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Artistically inclined from a young age, he attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and started his first business venture, Alternate Graphics, while still a student there. Initially he created stickers, t-shirts, skateboards, and posters, which he sold via the mail order catalogs that he distributed. Along with his friends he created paper and vinyl stickers and posters with an image of the wrestler André the Giant which became very popular and earned him considerable attention. And this was just the beginning. Over the next few years his popularity grew manifold and he became an internationally renowned figure when he designed the Barack Obama "Hope" poster during the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Even though acknowledged to be a highly creative and innovative person, he has also often been accused of plagiarizing other artists' work